Harry Potter's Invitation to the World

by Vickie Ewell

 

Chapter 52 – Harry Sees His Family in the Mirror
(HP Chapter 12)

Those people caused Harry to spun around and look, but the room was surprisingly empty. Slowly, he turned back to the mirror. He could clearly see himself and at least 10 other people standing behind him. Harry glanced over his shoulder, but there was still no one with him. He wondered if he was in a room full of invisible people like himself. Maybe the mirror was a trick in that it could reflect you – invisible or not.

Harry often reacted out of instinct, and he always reacted out of love, but his ability to discern and make accurate judgments was faulty. This was no exception. Harry was looking outside of himself for answers. He looked into the mirror again. This time, a woman was smiling and waving at him. He reached out to see if she was really there. He figured that if she was invisible like he was, he would be able to touch her, but he didn’t feel a thing. There was only air.

Apparently, she and the others only existed inside the mirror. He had figured that much out. Harry had also realized that the people and the mirror were connected to each other, but he didn’t understand that the mirror actually lived inside of him.

The woman had dark red hair like the Weasleys and bright green eyes like Harry’s! She was crying and smiling at the same time. She was as happy to see Harry as Harry will soon be to see her. There was a tall, thin, black-haired man standing next to her. He put his arm around her. He wore glasses, and his hair was untidy. It stuck up in the back exactly like Harry’s hair did.

At that point Harry discerned who the couple was, but he had stepped so close to the mirror that his nose was almost touching it. “Mom?” he whispered. “Dad?” They were questions that the couple in the mirror didn’t answer. They didn’t deny what Harry asked them, but they didn’t confirm it either. They just looked at Harry and continued to smile.

Our true Self is a piece of Divinity, comes from Divinity, but we don’t remember in what way. Nor could we relate to their true form from the vantage point of the earthly plane. They are communicating with Harry is a way that Harry can understand. Harry next looked into the faces of the other people in the mirror. He saw other pairs of green eyes like his, other noses like his, even a little old man who looked as though he had Harry’s knobbly knees. Harry guessed he was looking at his family for the first time in his life.

At this point, I’m not convinced Harry is seeing what or who he thinks he is. He is seeing several people who have features like his. There’s an old man who has wobbly knees that resemble his. But rather than his ancestors, he could just as likely be looking at his past selves or at astral creations his desire has created. Since he’s at the point where he has the potential to become the Living Stone, we know that his soul is an old man.

Harry pressed his hands against the glass as he was hoping to fall into the mirror, so that he could be with his parents and family. He felt a powerful ache within himself. It was half joy, but also half sadness because these individuals represented everything that mattered to Harry – everything he didn’t have.

Harry stood there for a long time. The reflections didn’t fade. It was only a distant noise that brought him back to his senses. This coming back to the realities of the sensual, physical world infer that the mirror may have taken Harry somewhere other than the physical plane. Harry realized he couldn’t stay here with the mirror. He had to find a way to get back into his bed before he was caught.

He tore his eyes away from his mother’s face. “I’ll come back,” he said, and then hurried from the room.

The following day, Ron wasn’t happy that Harry had left him behind. He wanted to see Harry’s parents too. That may or may not have been true, but Harry planned to return to the mirror, and assured Ron that he would take him with him when he went back. Harry wanted to see Ron’s relatives in the mirror. That was true. He believed the mirror’s trick was that it allowed you to see your family – something Ron didn’t care about.

Harry was thinking from a physical perspective. His experience is the only experience he has to judge the mirror’s existence by. It appeared that the mirror allowed you to see your family. This suggests that judging our mortal experience can be a bit faulty because we only see things from our current subjective perspective. We see only a piece of the puzzle, not the whole picture.

Harry became so caught up in his desire for his family that Nicolas Flamel quickly became unimportant. In fact, Harry no longer cared about what the three-headed dog was guarding, nor that Snape had attempted to steal it. All that mattered to him was his family.

Many of us can see that aspect in ourselves. We learn to step outside of ourselves and love our families. We desire to do things with them, be around them, and love them. It is a way to help us break free from our selfishness, but it also can become a trap. Our identity has spread a bit. Instead of just ourselves, “me” and “you”, now we identify with a group. Our family becomes “us” and “you.”

We start to defend the group. We fight for the group in the same way that the inhabitants of the four Hogwart’s houses do. All that matters to us, is the group. If you hurt or injure a member of my group, it is the same as hurting me. This is the mindset of the members of each of the Hogwart’s houses, the same as it is for other groups such as families or religious organizations. Harry has never had that experience in this lifetime. He’s instinctively moving in that direction. He believes the images in the mirror are real.

Harry’s greatest fear at this point is that he might not be able to find the mirror again. The experience with the mirror made him feel good. He felt accepted, and he felt loved.

Harry did keep his promise to Ron. Ron represents our reaching out beyond our family and drawing those we like, or relate to, into our family circle. We spread ourselves outward just a little bit more. If we are still identifying with our family group (they are “us”), friends are still just friends. We care about them. We love them, but they are not our family. There is “us” and there is “them.”

Since Harry and Ron were both hidden underneath the cloak of invisibility, they had to move slower than Harry had the night before. Together, they tried to retrace the path Harry had traveled. This insinuates that at the beginning of each lifetime, we attempt to retrace our previous steps, our previous path, in order to get back to where we left off.

Harry and Ron wandered around, searching for the door, for about an hour. This was so much like how it feels when we reincarnate. We have a new lower personality reflective of our current environment and upbringing, and have to find the gate again that leads to Liberation. We have to renew that feeling of being fed up with the world. We aren’t born knowing what we’re supposed to be doing here. That’s one of the reasons ancient Alchemists left clues within their manuscripts